<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE article  PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd"><article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en" article-type="research article"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">CRCM</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Case Reports in Clinical Medicine</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="epub">2325-7075</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Scientific Research Publishing</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.4236/crcm.2017.65013</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">CRCM-76336</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Articles</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="Discipline-v2"><subject>Medicine&amp;Healthcare</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>
 
 
  Right Inguinal Varicose Vein in Connection with Femoral Vein Following Intravenous Drug Abuse: A Rare Radiologic Finding
 
</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ahmad</surname><given-names>Rezaee Azandaryani</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1"><sup>1</sup></xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Mehrdad</surname><given-names>Taghipour</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2"><sup>2</sup></xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Leili</surname><given-names>Ebrahimi Farsangi</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3"><sup>3</sup></xref></contrib></contrib-group><aff id="aff2"><addr-line>Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Beasat Hospital, Hamadan, Iran</addr-line></aff><aff id="aff3"><addr-line>Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Shahid Rajaee Hospital, Karaj, Iran</addr-line></aff><aff id="aff1"><addr-line>Radiology Department, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Beasat Hospital, Hamadan, Iran</addr-line></aff><pub-date pub-type="epub"><day>23</day><month>05</month><year>2017</year></pub-date><volume>06</volume><issue>05</issue><fpage>137</fpage><lpage>141</lpage><history><date date-type="received"><day>January</day>	<month>26,</month>	<year>2017</year></date><date date-type="rev-recd"><day>Accepted:</day>	<month>May</month>	<year>20,</year>	</date><date date-type="accepted"><day>May</day>	<month>23,</month>	<year>2017</year></date></history><permissions><copyright-statement>&#169; Copyright  2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. </copyright-statement><copyright-year>2014</copyright-year><license><license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</license-p></license></permissions><abstract><p>
 
 
  Varicose veins are enlarged, protuberant superficial veins that are palpable beneath the skin. The causes of such a venous pathology may be primary, secondary, or congenital. The major agents leading to the development of varicose veins include: Hereditary, prolonged standing, Increasing age, Heavy lifting, Prior superficial or deep vein clots, Female gender and Multiple pregnancies. In this manuscript, we report a case of inguinal varicose vein in connection with femoral vein, resulted from direct intravenous injection of drug. The diagnosis was made based on Doppler sonography.
 
</p></abstract><kwd-group><kwd>Substance Abuse</kwd><kwd> Intravenous</kwd><kwd> Varicose Vein</kwd></kwd-group></article-meta></front><body><sec id="s1"><title>1. Introduction</title><p>Varicose veins are twisted, gnarled and swollen veins which are usually seen in lower extremities [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref1">1</xref>] . These are more common in women than men [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref2">2</xref>] . Some associated risk factors and causes are: obesity, pregnancy, menopause, aging, prolonged standing and leg injury. Some other factors also exist that are less pervasive like the direct intravenous injection [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref3">3</xref>] [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref4">4</xref>] . Intravenous drug abuse usually performs by drug users in the upper and lower extremities. Direct intravenous injection can have side effects which many of such cases have been reported so far. These include: infection, aneurysm, vascular necrosis and deep vein thrombosis. Based upon the radiologic texts, the present complication has relatively low incidence in general population and is valuable to be presented as a case report.</p></sec><sec id="s2"><title>2. Case Presentation</title><p>A 26-year-old male referred to the clinical center with a bulging and pain in right inguinal area (<xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig1">Figure 1</xref>). The sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of this patient are shown in <xref ref-type="table" rid="table1">Table 1</xref>. Hehas had a history of substance abuse intravenously in his femoral vein two years ago. He noted that he had not been injected in this area from two years ago. No special past medical history such as: local or systemic infection, chronic non-communicable diseases existed. On examination, the patient was not febrile. Vital signs were normal. In the physical examination, no lymphadenopathy was detected. The femoral, popliteal, and distal pulses were touched. Vascular packets with extension to the groin as well</p><fig id="fig1"  position="float"><label><xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig1">Figure 1</xref></label><caption><title> (a) Right inguinal demonstrates focal superficial protrusion, note prominent superficial veins at the periphery of the main lesion (arrows), (b) Gary scale ultrasound imsges from focal inguinal bulging demonstrates injection site (between arrows) con- nected femoral vein and varicose packets, FA (femoral artery), FV (femoral vein)</title></caption><graphic mimetype="image"   position="float"  xlink:type="simple"  xlink:href="http://html.scirp.org/file/2-2770754x2.png"/></fig><table-wrap id="table1" ><label><xref ref-type="table" rid="table1">Table 1</xref></label><caption><title> Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the patient</title></caption><table><tbody><thead><tr><th align="center" valign="middle" >Age (years)</th><th align="center" valign="middle" >26</th><th align="center" valign="middle" >Side of vein involvement</th><th align="center" valign="middle" >Right side</th></tr></thead><tr><td align="center" valign="middle" >Marital status</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Divorced</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Risk factors</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Smoking, local injection</td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="middle" >Monthly family income</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Less than 200 $</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Conservative management</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Limb elevation, Compression stockings</td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="middle" >Occupational status</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Unskilled</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Medical management</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Analgesics, Oral anticoagulants</td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="middle" >Education</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >illiterate</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Surgical procedures</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Saphenous vein stripping</td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="middle" >Place of residence</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Rural</td><td align="center" valign="middle" ></td><td align="center" valign="middle" ></td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="middle" >Signs</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Inguinal swelling, vascular packets</td><td align="center" valign="middle" ></td><td align="center" valign="middle" ></td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="middle" >Symptoms</td><td align="center" valign="middle" >Right inguinal area bulging and pain</td><td align="center" valign="middle" ></td><td align="center" valign="middle" ></td></tr></tbody></table></table-wrap><p>as prominent vessels around the mass were observed. The blood flows distri- buted from the femoral vein into the packets following Valsalva maneuver, and the direct connection with femoral vein was obvious. Dopler ultrasonographic evaluation conducted to assess the exact blood flow patterns and the existed connection between the femoral vein and varicose packets. Changes in blood flow after Valsalva maneuver was also represented in <xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig2">Figure 2</xref>. The patient was followed for treatment. At first, the patient underwent conservative management and then medical and surgical.</p></sec><sec id="s3"><title>3. Discussion</title><p>The leading causative agent of varicose veins is unknown. It involves about sixty percent of the general population in the modern countries with further epidemiologic prevalence in women [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref5">5</xref>] . Here in the present paper, we report a case of 26-year-old male with varicose vein secondary to direct intravenous drug abuse diagnosed by duplex ultrasound.</p><p>The mechanisms of varicosity are not obviously clarified. Reflux and incompetency occurring in the vein valves, and also dilation of the vein wall are primarily lead to venous varicosis [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref6">6</xref>] . Once the vessel wall escalating tensionshappen, the expression/activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) are also increasing [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref7">7</xref>] . Endothelial cell damage causes a cascade of leukocyte infiltration and inflammation, leading to more vein wall injury. In addition to the common risk factor for the disease like: prolonged standing, superficial or deep vein clots, female gender, multiple pregnancies, increasing age and heavy lifting; there are some other various factors that cause such disorders with mentioned mecha- nisms. Unusual etiologies of varicose veins in the lower extremities was evaluated in study conducted by Seung Chai Jung et al. [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref8">8</xref>] . They reported that the major rare factor of developing varicose vein was vulvoperineal varicosity, fol-</p><fig id="fig2"  position="float"><label><xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig1">Figure 1</xref></label><caption><title> (a) Duplex ultrasound image after valsalva at injection site demonestrates venous Doppler pattern; (b) Color duppler ultransound images after valsalva maneuver from injection site demonstrates deep to superficial direction of flow, note engorged va- ricose packets also</title></caption><graphic mimetype="image"   position="float"  xlink:type="simple"  xlink:href="http://html.scirp.org/file/2-2770754x3.png"/></fig><p>lowed by round ligament varicosity, persistent sciatic vein incompetence, intraosseous perforating vein incompetence, Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome, congenital venous malformation, and portosystemic collateral-related varicose vein. In our study, the varicose vein packets developed following direct intravenous injecting in the femoral vein. Senbanjo et al. examined the types of drug used to inject in the groin and its local consequences and complicataions. The concluded that heroin was the most common drug with was abused and deep vein thrombosis was the most prevalent complication [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.76336-ref9">9</xref>] . The diagnosis of the disease is not so difficult but the etiologic factor is important and always is questionable. Diagnosis is often delayed and patients are not managed precisely for long period of time.</p></sec><sec id="s4"><title>4. Conclusion</title><p>This case report establishes new horizon for clinicians in order to consider more probable etiologic factors for venous disorders. Such unusual cases may be detected with the combined modalities of CT venography and Duplex sonography.</p></sec><sec id="s5"><title>Conflict of Interest Statement</title><p>None of the contributing authors have any conflict of interest, including specific financial interests or relationships and affiliations relevant to the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript.</p></sec><sec id="s6"><title>Cite this paper</title><p>Azandaryani, A.R., Taghipour, M. and Farsangi, L.E. (2017) Right Inguinal Varicose Vein in Connection with Femoral Vein Following Intravenous Drug Abuse: A Rare Radiologic Finding. Case Reports in Clinical Medicine, 6, 137-141. https://doi.org/10.4236/crcm.2017.65013</p></sec></body><back><ref-list><title>References</title><ref id="scirp.76336-ref1"><label>1</label><mixed-citation publication-type="other" xlink:type="simple">Marsden, G., Perry, M., Kelley, K. and Davies, A.H. 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